


Soot

by SilenceoftheLlamas



Category: Stand Still Stay Silent
Genre: Angst, References to character injury, Reynir/Onni if u squint, Spoilers for page 661, excessive crying
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-01-19
Updated: 2017-01-19
Packaged: 2018-09-18 15:37:37
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 973
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/9391340
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/SilenceoftheLlamas/pseuds/SilenceoftheLlamas
Summary: Reynir ventures into the dreamspace to find out more about Onni's condition.





	

Reynir couldn’t hear much through the taped up door, but that didn’t stop him from plastering himself up against the wall closest to where the radio was and listening in.

“… he’s in stable condition, but unresponsive. I’m so sorry.”

Whatever Tuuri’s reply with he didn’t hear, his breath catching in his throat and choking him.

His fault. It was his fault.

He clasped his hands over his facemask, trying to remember how to breathe. It felt like a punch in the chest, his blood running like ice in his veins.

_His fault._

_His fault._

_His fault._

Onni had done something last night, that much he was sure of. He felt the prickle of fire around the tank, so hot and so enveloping for a moment he worried they were going to be cooked alive. And then the smell, the unmistakeable smell of burning troll that he’d come to know and associate with Emil, but so so overpowering he knew that Emil alone couldn’t have been capable of it.

Onni had heard him, Onni had come to help them.

He shouldn’t have asked. He shouldn’t have begged for him to save them, he should have just accepted it and let the others handle it.

Why did he drag Onni into this? Onni was safe in Mora, and he’d saved them once already. It was too much to ask for it again.

Reynir didn’t realise he was sobbing until he felt a rag being pressed into his hands, Mikkel saying something to him and gesturing to his face. He couldn’t hear him, his heartbeat still thundering in his ears, but with shaking hands he dabbed at his face.

Oh, gods, what had he done?

“… She’ll be okay,” Mikkel said, “remember the presumptions.”

Reynir forced himself to nod. The Dane thought he was crying about Tuuri, when really the fact her brother had been knocked into an effective coma was what tore him to pieces.

Reynir didn’t know where Lalli was, or where Emil was either. Sigrun was outside sulking in the sunlight, most likely nursing both her wounded arm and her wounded pride. Mikkel was speaking to Sigrun in his weird mumbly language.

He had to check. He had to find Onni in the dreamspace, to make sure he was okay there. If he was alive and well there, then he knew that he’d relax some.

So he drowned out the sound of Tuuri on the radio, the muffled talking outside, and finally allowed himself to fall asleep.

* * *

 

His dreamspace was the same as ever, the lush green grass tickling his ankles, the sheep grazing a stones throw from him. His dog, the name of which he had forgotten (Onni would probably smack him over the head for it. He’d worked hard to find out things like this for him), yapped at his heels. Forcing a smile, Reynir began to run.

And run.

_And run._

The water was eaten up under his feet, the splashing barely registering in his ears. And then, in the distance, he saw it.

Onni’s dreamspace.

He had hoped the charred appearance of it was simply due to distance, and the barrier around it, and not-

Reynir skidded in and felt his stomach drop and his chest clench painfully.

The once green grass was now parched and singed, smoke still rising from places. The once crystal clear pools of water were stagnant and murky with ash, and the trees looked like sad little match sticks.

And Onni was nowhere to be seen.

“Onni!” Reynir desperately shouted, not caring who heard. “Onni! Please!”

Reynir ran around, shouting until his voice was hoarse and his throat raw. Eventually, when he was about to give up and just collapse into a sobbing heap on the ground, he saw someone slumped against a rock formation, obscured by smoke.

“Onni?” He croaked, gingerly walking towards him before the fur registered in his mind and he began sprinting.

The owl was nowhere in sight.

“Onni!” Reynir shouted as he skidded to a stop, falling onto his ass before he scrambled back up and clambered towards Onni. Now he was closer, he could see that the smoke was coming from _him_.

“I’m so sorry,” Reynir choked, shaking hands reaching to smooth out the upset furs wrapped around the older mans shoulders, “I’m so so sorry, I shouldn’t have – you’ve done so much for us already- I’m so sorry,” the tears felt hot on his face, his vision blurred as he choked on his own spit and scrubbed at his face. Onni should be scolding him for talking so much. He should be scolding him for being so loud, for crying so much.

Not unresponsive and smoking on the ground.

Reynir looked around them and keened loudly, a fresh round of tears nothing short of exploding from his face. This was his fault. He was the reason why this beautiful place was in ruins, he was the reason why the pools were murky and dead; he was the reason why smoke clung to his lungs and soot left tracks on his skin.

His fault, his fault, his fault.

“This is all my fault.” Reynir cried out, burying his face in Onni’s furs, gripping onto them tightly as his body shook with the force of his tears.

If only he were a better mage. Then, maybe, Tuuri wouldn’t have been bitten. Then he could have actually done more than sit in the tank and wait for the guns to stop firing.

He wouldn’t have had to beg Onni for help.

“I’m so sorry, Onni,” Reynir rested his arms above Onni’s head, letting his tears fall onto the other mans face and wash away some of the soot that blackened it, “I’m so so sorry.”

* * *

**A[friend](http://abprallen.tumblr.com/) of mine drew this for me; couldn't stop laughing so I'm posting it here!**

 

**Author's Note:**

> Welp, someone give the boy some tissues. Not gunna pretend I know how the dreamspace works; kinda winging it here, although from what I understand it reflects the mage it belongs to. Given how my Owl Son is currently a little toasted, I'd imagine his dreamspace is too.  
> Also, I really like how Onni looks in the last panel? He looks so peaceful in a weird way.


End file.
